Maker Uses Raspberry Pi Pico To Control Asphalt 8 Racer With Hand Gestures Alone

For those not familiar with Asphalt 8, it's an auto racing game that is quite popular on Android and iOS mobile platforms, although it is also Windows compatible. The most popular method for steering input on mobile platforms is tilting your device, which uses the built-in accelerometer. That's where Hriday's setup comes into play.

The MPU-6050 module is attached to his wrist and records his hand movements. All he needs to do is tilt his hand forward to accelerate and back to brake. Rotating his wrist left or right steers the vehicle. It also appears that he is using a quick, upward flick of the wrist to get a nitro boost. The gyroscope/accelerometer data from his hand gestures are then fed directly from MPU-6050 back to the Raspberry Pi Pico. The Raspberry Pico is connected to his Windows PC to serve as the dedicated control input for Asphalt 8.

While we must commend Hriday for his ingenuity in thinking up and implementing this wrist-controlled driving setup, we think he needs a bit more practice before being viewed as a serious competitive threat on the digital streets. To put it another way, if he were driving like this in the real world, he'd be pulled over by police within minutes and given a field sobriety test.

You can visit Hriday's blog to see a complete overview of how he got his setup operational and download the necessary code to make your own copy. He even has some ideas for future modifications, writing, "Theoretically, we can share the laptop screen to a VR like Google Cardboard or Oculus Rift and play Asphalt 8 in VR which is controlled by hand."

We love seeing exciting projects like this, and the Raspberry Pi community is full of great ideas like these that are ripe for other tinkerers to try out. Tell us what you think of Hriday's Raspberry Pi Pico + MPU-6050 in the comments below.